India is moving to grab more opportunities and planning to push for delinking the investment from proposed Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) with the European Union (EU). Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that India is negotiating a broad-based BTIA with the EU.
The BTIA negotiations began in 2007, so far sixteen rounds of negotiations has concluded. Recently three rounds of stocktaking meetings have been held. On other free trade agreement’s (FTAs), she said that India is negotiating a trade pact with Israel. The eighth round was held in Israel from 24-26 November 2013 wherein discussions took place on market access in goods, rules of origin, custom procedures and trade in services. In the subsequent inter-sessional consultations, the focus has been on a balanced outcome in both goods and services.
Sitharaman further stated that the full impact of the UK's decision to exit EU on India may take some time to unfold and the opportunities for India would depend on Great Britain's negotiations of terms of exit with the EU and their future negotiated trade relations. She added that a Joint Study Group (JSG) has been set up for considering the feasibility of entering into an FTA between India and Eurasian Economic Union (EaEU) comprising of five countries Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. An FTA is also being negotiated with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) which comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.